Thursday, January 29, 2015

Egypt appoints controversial UAE hired gun as elections monitor

Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s
efforts to lend legitimacy to parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring
have gotten off to a murky start with the appointment of a controversial, reportedly
United Arab Emirates-backed human rights NGO as one of five foreign election
monitors.

The appointment of Norway-based Global Network for Rights
and Development (GNRD) alongside four other foreign and
63 local NGOs followed statements by the European Union and The Carter
Center that they would not be monitoring the Egyptian parliamentary election in
March and April. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said the African Union would be
sending 50 monitors. International NGO’s complained that they were given only a
week to enter bids for the monitoring of this spring’s election.

GNRD has in the last year taken partisan stands by seeking to
thwart Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, promoting the autocratic UAE as a
model of adherence to human rights and backing Mr. Al Sisi despite his poor
human rights record and brutal crackdown on his opponents.

EU
foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said it would only deploy a small
expert mission to report on the parliamentary elections scheduled for March and
April. It said the reporting would focus "on the political environment and
the electoral campaign.” The Carter Center closed its Cairo office in October
and justified
its decision not to monitor the parliamentary election because "the
political environment is deeply polarized and that political space has narrowed
for Egyptian political parties, civil society, and the media. As a result, the
upcoming elections are unlikely to advance a genuine democratic transition in
Egypt.”

By contrast, GNRD, declared
after monitoring last year’s election of Mr. Al Sisi as president, that Egypt
had embarked on “a unique process toward democratic transition,” ignoring the
fact that the president before shedding his uniform had in 2013 toppled Egypt’s
first and only democratically elected president; outlawed the Muslim
Brotherhood, a significant political force; allowed security forces to brutally
suppress protests, killing more than a 1,000 people; incarcerated thousands of
his opponents; and ensured that Egyptian media excel in self-censorship.

Founded in 2008, GNRD is headed by Loai Mohammed Deeb, a
reportedly Palestinian-born international lawyer who has a track record as a
human rights activist, owns a UAE-based consultancy, and operated a fake
university in Scandinavia, according to veteran Middle East author and
journalist Brian
Whitaker.

The group is funded by anonymous donors to the tune of €3.5
million a year, much of which is believed to come from the UAE, a major backer
of Mr. Al Sisi’s autocratic regime. GNRD says it aims to “"to enhance and
support both human rights and development by adopting new strategies and
policies for real change.”

Qatar last year briefly detained two GNRD investigators who
were in the Gulf state to investigate the working and living conditions of
migrant workers. Qatar has been under severe pressure to reform its controversial
labour system that puts employees at the mercy of their employers. A FIFA
executive committee warned recently that Qatar could lose its 2022 World Cup
hosting rights if it failed to move forward with promised labour reforms.

Relations between Qatar and the UAE have long been strained
as a result of deep-seated and long-standing resentment by Emirati leaders of
Qatar’s support for the Brotherhood. The UAE, alongside Saudi Arabia and
Bahrain, returned in December its ambassador to Doha after a nine-month absence
in a move that papered over their differences without Qatar conceding any real
ground to demands that it cut its ties to Islamist groups.

As a result, GNRD’s credentials for judging Qatar’s labour
record or the forthcoming Egyptian election are questionable. The group’s
International Human Rights Rank Indicator (IHRRI) last year listed the UAE at
number 14 as the Arab country most respectful of human rights as opposed to
Qatar that it ranked at number 94.

The ranking contradicts reports by human rights groups,
including the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR), which said it had
credible evidence of torture of political prisoners in the UAE and questioned
the independence of the country’s judiciary. Egypt’s State Information Service
reported in December that GNRD had supported the banning of the Muslim
Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and called for an anti-Brotherhood
campaign in Europe.

An Emirati human rights activist told Middle
East Eye: “They are supported by the UAE government for public relations
purposes. The GNRD published a fake human rights index last year that wrongly
praised the UAE.”

With offices in offices in Norway, Belgium, Switzerland,
Spain, Sudan, Jordan and the UAE, GNRD is part of a network of reportedly
Emirati-backed groups in Scandinavia and France that seek to polish the UAE’s
image while tarnishing that of Qatar. It fits a larger Emirati effort that
involved hiring a US lobbying firm established by former high-ranking US
Treasury officials at a cost of millions of dollars to plant anti-Qatari
stories in the US media, behind-the-scenes pressure on the Obama administration
to revisit its relationship with Qatar and assessment of the Brotherhood; and
the creation of religious groups to counter organizations headed by Doha-based
Sheikh Yousef Qaradawi, an influential, controversial cleric with close ties to
the Brotherhood.

The UAE has taken an increasingly activist role in opposing
Islamist and jihadist groups with its participation in the US-led coalition
against the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria
and Iraq, and its military support for anti-Islamist forces in Libya.
Nevertheless, its’ apparent effort to fuel calls for depriving Qatar of its
World Cup hosting by highlighting the labour controversy backfired with the
exposure of the two GNRD investigators and disclosure of its PR campaign in the
US. The effort contrasted the UAE’s official backing of Qatar’s hosting of the
World Cup.

The backfiring raises questions about GNRD’s credentials to
act as an independent monitor of the Egyptian parliamentary election that would
offer an unbiased assessment of the polling. Its appointment appears to be a
nod to the UAE, which is a major financial contributor to the Al Sisi government
and investor in Egypt, which is dependent on massive Gulf funding. UAE funding
appears designed in part to strengthen the military’s already significant stake
in the Egyptian economy.

Global
Risk Advisors, an international consultancy, noted that Gulf states use
their financial muscle “to expand their regional soft power. This type of soft
power is usually expensive to acquire and often easily lost,” it warned. In the
case of GNRD, the risk to the UAE and Egypt is primarily reputational rather
than financial.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, a
syndicated columnist, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with
the same title.

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James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile